The sweeping federal plan to shore up and bail out the financial markets doesn’t sound very small-government Republican. But so far it has helped reassure the stock market, which is up sharply. Many details of the plan will still need to be hammered out with Congress.
FYI: Randy has a farewell column today explaining how he took a job in Boulder, Colo., with Trout Unlimited. The job is a great combination of Randy’s interests: writing, conservation and fly fishing. “It’s an exciting new challenge and also the realization of a dream for me,” Randy wrote. “From my teenage years on, I’ve regularly plotted my escape to points west to engage in what I’m sure must look to outsiders like a pointless and even daft pursuit.”
The serial disasters in the financial sector are coinciding with a key presidential campaign. But is it too much to expect the response to them to be bipartisan, on a par with that of Congress and the Bush administration immediately after Sept. 11? Apparently it is, judging from what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had to say about the action by the White House and Federal Reserve to loan $85 billion to American International Group, including: “This is their problem. This is their solution.” Besides, if people want to point fingers, as financial consultant Bert Ely told the New York Times, “there’s plenty of blame to go around.”
The goals for Afghanistan aren’t being served by U.S. and NATO airstrikes that have killed nearly 400 Afghan civilians this year, including 92 in one U.S.-led raid last month. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to go to Afghanistan this week and offer his “sincere condolences and personal regret for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition airstrikes.” Beyond words, Gates and other NATO leaders must also heed the call of Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, for more troops in addition to the one U.S. combat brigade arriving in January. A troop shortage leads to more air combat, McKiernan said. And that can mean more civilian losses. If anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan are going to succeed, Afghans’ hearts and minds must be with those efforts.
The U.S. House passed an energy bill late Tuesday that would allow offshore drilling and provide for intensified development of alternative energy sources. We hope it becomes part of the basis for a House-Senate conference committee that can hammer out a final compromise. The bipartisan compromise crafted by the so-called Gang of 20 (10 Republicans and 10 Democrats) offers a vehicle for progress. In particular, it would give states incentive to allow drilling by sharing revenue from the leases. The New Energy Reform Act of 2008 also calls for $84 billion to move cars and trucks to fuels other than gasoline and diesel. It would exclude tax credits for oil companies to pay for the plan. Embrace productive compromise. Enact a new, comprehensive energy policy, as the Senate group proposes.
— Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal editorial
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts have heard the public’s chants to “drill now,” but remain deaf to Americans’ seriousness about that call. Expect them to couch resistance to their proposals as a Republican effort to shield Big Oil from increased taxes and to block advancement of alternative energy initiatives. The Pelosi and Senate bills should be exposed for what they are: mere political artifices meticulously designed to chink partisan opposition while denying what Americans repeatedly have said they want — to tap deeper the country’s own supply of oil.
— The News Virginian, Waynesboro, Va., editorial
The sweeping federal plan to shore up and bail out the financial markets doesn’t sound very small-government Republican. But so far it has helped reassure the stock market, which is up sharply. Many details of the plan will still need to be hammered out with Congress.
